Let's face it, pregnancy, no matter how active you are, does a number on your core. Outside of general core weakness from the muscles being stretched out as baby grows, many folks also get some level of diastasis recti, a separation of the abdominal muscles that can contribute to additional weakness, pouching of the belly and bigger issues if left untreated. In the face of this it may feel like the best thing to do is to dive right into sit ups as soon as baby is born. Which is absolutely not the right answer. The best answer is doing core work, every day, in slow, incremental movements to help build core without doing any further damage. Here are four exercises you can do (once you've got clearance from your provider) to start rebuilding your core safely.

When we think about pregnancy we don't really think about having a core, we generally think about losing it, which is something that happens to a certain extent. But understanding what happens to you core during pregnancy can be very helpful in understanding how to avoid issues in the core during pregnancy (like diastasis recti) which can have an overall impact on the health of your core as your start to heal postpartum. Curious to find out what's happening?

Diastasis recti is something often talked about after pregnancy as we start to address the changes that have happened to the body during pregnancy and continue to happen postpartum. The thing is though, you can start addressing diastasis during your pregnancy and steps you take then can make a difference in the amount of abdominal separation that happen. First off, what is diastasis recti? 

The most significant muscle stretching in the core happens along the rectus abdominus and impacts the connective tissue called the linea alba. The rectus abdominus muscle consists of two sets of muscle bellies that run parallel and are held together by a connective tissue called the linea alba which runs from the sternum to the pubic bone. As baby grows and the uterus expands, the muscle bellies can separate and the linea alba stretches thin which is what creates diastasis recti.  

So, what to do?